'Big Breakfast' Diet Helps Shed Pounds

Eating a 600-calorie breakfast rich in carbohydrates and protein helps dieters lose more weight long term than eating a modest breakfast andfollowing a lower-carb eating plan, according to a new study.

Breakfast and weightloss have long been linked, but the new research zeroes in on how to helpdieters stick with a plan and not regain the lost weight by adjusting theamount of carbohydrates, protein, and calories eaten early in the day.

"Those on the 'big breakfast diet' feel less hungry before lunch and allday," says Daniela Jakubowicz, MD, an endocrinologist in Caracas,Venezuela, and a clinical professor at Virginia Commonwealth University inRichmond, who led the study. She is presenting her findings this week at ENDO08, the 90th annual meeting of The Endocrine Society in San Francisco.

With colleagues from Virginia Commonwealth University, Jakubowicz assigned94 obese , physically inactive women, on average in their30s, to two groups:

The low-carb diet group of 46 women wasinstructed to eat a small breakfast totaling about 290 calories that was low incarbohydrates and typically didn't include bread. A sample breakfast might haveincluded a cup of milk, one egg, three slices of bacon, and two teaspoons ofbutter. When they visited the study center, these women ate breakfast there andtheir food was monitored. They ate an average of 1,085 calories a day.

The big-breakfast group of 48 women was told to eat a breakfast of about610 calories. A sample breakfast: a cup of milk, turkey, cheese, two slices ofbread, mayonnaise, 1 ounce of chocolate candy, and a protein shake. They couldeat the breakfast in stages from the time they got up until 9 a.m. Thisgroup averaged 1,240 calories a day.

Both groups stayed on the diet for four months to lose weight, and thenshifted to maintenance mode for the last four months.

At the four-month mark, the dieters eating the modest breakfast droppedabout 28 pounds, while those on the big breakfast plan lost 23 pounds.

The real differences showed up at the eight-month mark, when the low-carbdieters had regained an average of 18 pounds and the big-breakfast eaterscontinued to lose, dropping another 16.5 pounds on average.

In all, members of the big-breakfast group lost more than 21% of their bodyweight; low-carb group members lost 4.5%.

A bonus, says Jakubowicz, is that the big-breakfast dieters reported less hunger and fewer cravings for carbohydrates than theother group.

Big Breakfast Diet

Some of the study findings make perfect sense and are well known to nutrition experts, says Joan Salge Blake, RD, aspokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association and a professor of nutritionat Boston University, who reviewed the study for WebMD.

"We know women who don't eat breakfast are more likely to do impulsive,unplanned snacking," she says. "It's no big surprise that havingbreakfast and having protein is a good thing when it comes to weightloss."

"We know protein will have the biggest effect on the feeling offullness," she says. "It's always important to have protein at eachmeal."

But she has some misgivings about both diets , contending that the dailycalorie allotment and the carbohydrate intake was too low in both groups."One hundred thirty grams of carbohydrate are the minimum for our brain tokeep working," she says, citing guidelines from the National Academy ofSciences.

To achieve weight loss, she advises eating breakfast every day, includingprotein at each meal, and also focusing on eating fruits, vegetables, and wholegrains.

While the participants in the study were all obese, Jakubowicz says shethinks the plan will work for thos with less weight to lose, too.

"I think this is the right way of eating, even if you are thin. I thinkit works for everybody and especially for obesity."